Tiger Lily: Part Three (6 page)

“Come over here, Lily,” he repeated, this time enunciating every word.

I glared at him, though a thrill went through me. He appeared calm, but his eyes were stormy. He had moved his seat back and was waiting.

I inhaled and pushed back before standing. My pulse increased with every step as I closed the distance between us and stood before him.

He took my hands. “I have few friends, Lily. My work and life are complex. I don’t get to be as social and I was brought up to suspect everything and everyone. Alan, who’s marrying Dani, like Ian, is one of those few who became my friend. I’ve known them both for over ten years. However, when it comes to you, I will let Ian’s friendship go. I’ve learned that much. The only thing that saved him was finding out how he helped you in my absence.”

He looked at me, examining my expression, then continued. “I don’t want to play games. Ian wouldn’t appreciate or deserve to be played, either.”

I knew he was referring to my using Ian as a pawn to push Melissa out of our lives as well, and I immediately felt bad. Particularly because Ian
had
helped me. I nodded my head rapidly. I didn’t want to be the reason their friendship ended. Just the thought made me ill. “I understand. And I’m sorry,” I sighed.

He exhaled. “I accept. In regard to Melissa, she is an old friend I’ve known practically my whole life. Her life isn’t perfect, and she’s not perfect, but I won’t throw her away because of her feelings. You didn’t cast Gregor away, and he’s in love with you.”

My mouth dropped open. “He knows I don’t feel the same way. And he accepts it. I don’t believe Melissa holds the same sentiment.”

“Gregor tried to warn you against me with Maggie. Remember? I wanted you away from him, but you wanted to keep that friendship. That makes this similar. So you’ll need to trust me.”

My shoulders hunched and I looked down. My stomach dropped. “Gregor didn’t do what she did. After what she did and said, you shouldn’t be around her. I don’t want you around her.”

“I’m furious with her for her behavior this afternoon. That hasn’t changed. But I shouldn’t abandon her friendship because of her feelings. I chose you, Lily.”

“For now,” I said, interrupting him. I stared at my bare feet.

“Come here,” I didn’t fight when he tugged me forward and down onto his lap. “You know I didn’t put a time limit on us. Have I given you reason to doubt me?”

I stared at my hands as they rolled up the ends of the tie on the robe. “I don’t trust her. I don’t feel secure with you being with her.”

He took the ties from my hands and opened my robe. “I think it’s more to do with you not having confidence in me. That will come in time, along with your belief that you’re mine,” he slipped the robe past my shoulders. “Take off your robe and fold it, then move your food over next to mine,” he said.

I narrowed my gaze. “Why? You want to play a sex game in the middle of our argument.”

“This is not a game, this is you being mine. I’m commanding and demanding. I’m all consuming. This is me, as I truly am. This is me giving you what I believe you need from me,” he said and released me. I immediately felt empty, but I sat there and thought about what he had said. His demand was sexual in nature, and the heat that was working through me, along with the throb in my sex, had me ready to do what he asked. Still, my mind wondered if I needed to acquiesce to him to feel assured in his feelings for me and not Melissa. Wouldn’t the same assurance be achieved by his saying he loved me?

My heart ached at how much I wanted those words from him right now. But he’d been given plenty of opportunities to say as much today, and he hadn’t. He wasn’t ready.

What he was ready for was to try to make me feel closer to him, and in that he was right. I needed that much from him right now.

Jonas exhaled long as I unclasped my robe, his stare fixed on me as I folded the robe, per his directions. Then I walked over to my seat and placed it down, lifting my plate and setting it next to his. I returned to stand before him and he sat me down in his lap, cuddling me close. My heart fluttered.

Jonas moved my hair and kissed the back of my neck and along my shoulders, resting his head against my back. “I need to be me and I need you to be mine,” he said, as if answering a question. His words seized my heart. So much pain lingered in those words. He needed more than words as assurance. I understood that now, but I said them anyway. “I am yours.”

He parted my thighs and cupped my sex possessively, then moved us close to the table. He lifted up a fork and fed me the remainder of my plate, before eating his own. He played with the wetness of my arousal there, and I moaned in the feeling of his fingers as they expertly stimulated me. I could feel his erection beneath me, and I shifted on his lap, willing him to action.

“Turn around and straddle my cock,” he finally commanded. I felt the brush of his robe against my buttocks as I stood and faced him. His eyes were cloudy and the corners of his mouth were turned down.

My eyes bore into his. “Yes, Jonas.” Reaching my hand down between his legs, I clasped his cock and moaned as I took his shaft inside me, my eyes never leaving his.

Jonas gripped my hips and pulled until I was flush against his thighs, then he covered my cry with his mouth in the joining of pain and pleasure as I took him all at once. But this was what he needed and wanted, for me to take all of him. I realized I needed the same. Our gazes fused as his hands held onto my hips and he controlled the rises and falls as I rode him. The way he wanted, and needed. As pleasure filled me up, I dug into his shoulders.

“Not yet,” he gritted and stopped, until my orgasm passed then started once more. The anger at the interruption flared, but quickly transformed to pleasure as our bodies came together. The sounds of our slick connection filled my ears as his pace increased.

His face was taut as he came, then transformed to a beauty that stole my breath away. My legs trembled as I fought to hold on and he kissed me and whispered a message of mercy that I took, coming hard and shuddering in his arms as he engulfed me. I was his. We belonged to each other. We stayed linked together. My head resting in the crook of Jonas’s shoulder, his hand sliding up and down my spine. “I forget you’re unwell. I’ve taken advantage…”

I tried, but failed to suppress the yawn coming out of my mouth as I sought to protest. Unfortunately, he took that yawn as proof of his claim, deepening the frown on his face. I tried again to speak, and this time I was successful. “You can’t take advantage of the willing. I want to have sex with you.”

The words ‘have sex’ sounded weird in my head and voice, as I struggled to communicate what we shared together. We didn’t just ‘have sex,’ making the description feel too clinical and cheap.
I touch him with love. He makes love to me.

Pressing my lips against his neck, I willed him to understand. He exhaled long, though his muscles felt tense. I opened my mouth on his neck and sucked, trying to leave a love bite. This brought about light laughter from Jonas, and a clasp of my shoulders, disengaging my lips and stopping the beginnings of a mark on his skin. “No,” he said.

I tried my best to blank my face. “Why not, Mr. Crane?”

“Because we’re not teenagers and I have enough of a bad reputation that I don’t want to add to,” he said and smirked.

I grinned. “I don’t think your reputation is bad. Everyone asks you for your advice and help with their businesses.”

“Everyone has critics. Some of them rightly so,” he interjected, his voice raised. He reached over for a napkin and wiped my thigh, then lifted me onto my feet.

I hugged him to my chest. “I can’t ever think of you as anything but perfect.”

He gave me a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I’m not perfect,” he said flatly.

“Then wonderful, brilliant, gorgeous,” I said, then pressed a kiss on his chin, feeling the short spikes of stubbled hair growth.

“You keep that up and you’ll forfeit your sleep. Then we’ll see how perfect I am,” he said in a low tone, kissing the space between my breasts.

I let go of him and rolled my eyes. As I turned to collect my robe, I felt a light swat across my buttocks. “See?” he said as I gave him a dirty look, one that blossomed into a mischievous grin on his face, so similar to the one I had seen on Paul’s earlier in the day. Watching him, it took me almost a minute to stop laughing as I put on my robe and tied it in place. “Paul has that look down pat,” I explained. “Did you teach him that?”

“Yes. He has picked up every bad habit I ever had. I guess it’s genetic,” he said, his eyes light. It caused a tingle in my chest. He was a gorgeous man, but beautiful when he smiled.

He started collecting the glasses on the table, breaking the spell, and I went about collecting the dishes and carrying them over to the sink.

“Were you a handful when you were younger?” I asked, rinsing the plates.

“I had my moments, but I didn’t have the freedom Paul has. Or even what Vincent had. My father barely spoke to him,” he said, adding the glasses to the water.

“Did your father suspect earlier…” I said gingerly. I knew the answer, as his mother in her fragile state had said as much. But Jonas didn’t respond right away, instead loading the dishwasher.

I walked away and started cleaning the table area.

“Yes,” he finally said. “Besides the fact that Vincent looks like a doppelganger of my father’s best friend, Vincent was doted on by my mother.” I walked over to him and placed my hand on his back. He continued, “My father cheated too, you know. But he prided himself on being careful when it came to having children. I was part of their pre-nup. A Crane son.” He lowered his head.

I hugged him as tight as I could. “I love who you are and what you became. If I could, I would thank them.”

He kissed the top of my head. “I’m alright, Lily. That’s all in the past. So let’s leave it there. It’s late.” And without another word, he lifted me off my feet and carried me off to bed, leaving me to continue to reflect alone on what he had willingly shared about his life.

THE SOUND OF MY
new phone buzzing like a banshee had my pulse sprinting as I desperately felt over the nightstand to answer it.
Note to self: Change the ringtone or destroy it.

“Hello?” I drew out the words, letting my annoyance bleed in at the disruption from an otherwise perfect night of sleep.

“A grumpy morning, Lily. Or should I say, afternoon?” Jonas said.

My pulse sprinted in my chest at the rich sound of his voice. “Sorry. I didn’t realize it was that late. I never sleep this long. Did you say afternoon?” I babbled as I forced myself to look around the room for the time and found a small clock on the ledge of the fireplace.
1:23!

“Yes. Afternoon,” he confirmed. “I didn’t want to wake you, but I couldn’t make it back to have lunch with you today. And now I know you didn’t have breakfast.”

I could hear the concern in his voice and sought immediately to lessen it. “I’ll get up and eat right now,” I promised. The sound of his breathing let me know he was still on the phone.

“I’ll conference call the last of my meetings at the apartment office. Expect me in a couple of hours,” he said.

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the bed. “You don’t need to alter your day to watch over me. I’m on my feet. I’m alright.”

“I pushed you too hard yesterday,” he said guiltily.

“You didn’t do anything I didn’t want to do. I could have said no,” I offered.

“I’m awfully persuasive. Or what was that you said? ‘Wonderful, brilliant, and gorgeous’?” he mused.

I giggled. “Perhaps I only said that as my own play at persuasion.”

“You didn’t. You’re in love with me,” he said brusquely.

My heart jumped into my throat, blocking the “Yes I am” from coming out of my mouth as I reeled from his casual acknowledgement of the depth of my feelings for him.

“I meant, you said you loved me,” he recovered, as he sought to end the silence now on the line.

“Yes. I understood what you meant,” I said and cleared my throat. “I should probably let you go so you can get on with work and come back soon.”

“Yes. My next meeting started already. I’ll see you soon,” Jonas said.

Neither of us hung up.

He sighed. “I called because I miss you.”

I ran my tongue over my lips. “I miss you too, Jonas,” I responded warmly, before taking the phone from my ear and hitting ‘end’.

I stared down at the screen for a few seconds before placing it on the bedside table. My shoulders hung as I walked over to the bathroom and into the glass walk-in shower, turning the nozzle and bracing myself for the shock of cold water on my skin before it settled to a warm temperature. Anything to block the lump in the center of my chest as I tried and failed not to reflect on my conversation with Jonas and our relationship.

He had my words of love and devotion to call on to quash any moment of doubt. Would I ever have the same from him?

Dampening the new sponge on the long shelf along the wall, I pumped what turned out to be a lavender body wash from the row of built-in dispensers, quickly washing over my body and draining the worries I had in the fragrant scent and the beauty of my new surroundings.